I stalked my way to it, slowly. Considering that the bulky piece of crap rested just a few feet from me, it seemed to take a long time for me to reach it. Not that I was in a rush, mind you. Creepy crawlies from hell had that effect on a gal.
The swoosh from Taran’s fire signaled her readiness to burn the thing to cinders, if Shayna’s daggers didn’t find it first. Shayna slid the blades she held against each other—her way of challenging the thing, and urging her inner mistress of all things sharp and deadly forward.
They were ready. I was ready. And now I’d reached my destination. My shaky hands extended toward the armrests. Dust poofed out in brown little clouds as I gripped the thick and torn fabric. I took a breath to steady myself and lifted.
The other twin poked its head from the bottom.
And clenched its mouth around my instep.
My lids peeled back and I screamed. Boy, did I scream! But only on the inside. I watched in shocked horror as this sickly gray creature pierced its yellow fangs through my sneaker and into the bones of my foot with a hair-raising crunch.
It hurt like the stab of hot needles, but I could handle a great deal of pain. What I couldn’t handle was a demon child biting through my shoe and slurping my body fluid like a thirsty dog. My blood ran cold. I dropped the damned chair and jerked my foot in my own freaky version of the Elaine dance.
“Did you get it, Ceel?”
I whirled around to show Shayna that no, I didn’t get it. It. Had. Me. My sisters screamed. The demon child held tight, flapping its long leather wings as it continued to feast.
“Get . . . It . . . Off . . . Me!”
They screamed once more, because that was really helpful. Finally Shayna came to her senses. Sort of.
“Keep still, Ceel.” She lifted one of her blades. “I don’t want to cut your foot off.”
Neither Shayna’s comment nor the fact that the demon child continued to suckle motivated me enough to stop prancing around. I kicked out hard, flinging the thing off me. It bounced off the wall, using its thick little frog legs to propel itself toward where my sisters huddled.
They jumped. But then it vanished. Shayna spun around, daggers out. “Where’d it go?”
Taran’s head jerked in all directions. “Goddamn it. Do you think it has the power to disappear?”
My eyes scanned the room as my heart continued to make my rib cage its bitch. “I don’t know. Aric said their time on earth is limited. Maybe it got summoned back to . . .” My voice trailed off as I caught Emme’s blanching skin. She stood still, staring blankly at one of the metal chairs leaning against the wood-paneled walls. “Emme. What’s wrong?”
Emme failed to answer, at least with words. She pirouetted carefully until her back was to us, revealing the demon child digging the claws of its hands and feet into her red wool coat, its tail whisking back and forth. It zipped up her back, tangling into the strands of her honey-colored locks before I could blink.
Taran jumped back. “Holy shit!”
I lunged at Emme, only to freeze when the demon child’s ears perched back and it reeled its head to face me. Quarter-size red eyes narrowed over a toadlike head and mouth. It screeched, protruding and elongating its serrated yellow teeth.
I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to fight it.
But Shayna did.
The blade of her knife caught a trickle of light filtering in as the gamut of her power rose in one tremendous sweep. She elongated the cutting edge of her dagger with her gift, manipulating the metal until it lengthened into a giant sword.
Before I could shout a warning to Emme, Shayna two-hand-gripped the hilt and brought it straight down Emme’s back, slicing a large chunk of her hair along with the demon child’s appendages. Four sets of claws remained attached to Emme’s coat and hair. One of them crawled along her shoulder and caressed her cheek before dissolving into a maggot and falling at her feet. Emme’s eyes rolled into the back of her head just before she crash-landed into Shayna.
The demon child hissed and lurched onto the ceiling. Taran blasted it with a jagged bolt of lightning, then another, and another, as it flew from one section to another. Gemini yelped above us. He nudged his head through one of the holes, his powerful jowls holding the limp body of the other twin.
The remaining demon child swooped down, clutching an old wall calendar with mutilated limbs as a rapid beat of paws arrived on the other side. Taran gathered her magic and screamed, hurling a tremendous ball of fire at the wall.
I roared, “No!” The side of the building exploded, the force knocking us back. Taran’s great ball of fire took out the entire section, missing the demon child and thankfully our wolves. One by one they poked their human heads through the cindering edges. “What the fuck?” Koda growled.